Guam

AGAT, Guam — Walter Denton wanted to grow up to be just like Father Tony Apuron, until the night he says the parish priest raped him in a church rectory. The pastor sent the sobbing 13-year-old altar boy away with a warning: "If you say anything to anybody, no one will believe you."

This year’s midterm elections justified pre-poll hype as the year of the woman. A record number of female candidates have been elected to the House of Representatives and at least nine won their races for governor.

Last October, a Vatican Tribunal reached a decision in the sex abuse trial of the Archbishop of Guam, but didn’t announce its verdict until last week. And even then, it left many questions unanswered. More from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.

Japanese visitors have played an important role in driving Hawaii’s tourism numbers to new records. But since North Korea made threats about Guam this summer, Japanese travel to that Pacific island has dropped. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.

So far, 141 suits have been filed in Guam alleging sex abuse by priests. The most recent just last week. This week, the man named in more than half those cases provides sworn evidence. We have more from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.

It’s been a tough year for Guam. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed accusing Catholic priests there of sexual abuse and, more recently, North Korea’s threatened to fire missiles at the island. Now, Guam’s representative in the U.S. Congress faces an ethics investigation…we have details from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.

73 years after the liberation of Guam, the US government has started to process claims for reparations. A bill signed by President Obama last December resolved decades of disputes over payments to those who suffered under Japanese occupation but we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, the arguments aren’t over yet.

In December 1941, Nine-year-old Forrest Mendiola Harris fled when bombs started dropping on his village. Now 85, he told the Pacific Daily News “I just want to say that I’m lucky that I lived through the war.”

This week, the Archdiocese of Guam asked a federal court to dismiss dozens of law suits filed by former altar boys who say they were raped and assaulted by priests as far back as the 1970s. The key to the suits was a law passed last year that lifted the statute of limitations, and as we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, that law is also the basis of the Archdiocese’s argument.

Last month, we reported on Guam’s dispute with the Justice Department over voter eligibility in a plebiscite restricted to Chamorros. In another similar case, the Justice Department charges that Guam’s Chamorro Land Trust violates anti-discrimination provisions of the Fair Housing Act. We have details from Neal Conan in the Pacific News Minute.

Late last week, a federal judge in Guam struck down the territory’s plan to hold a plebiscite on de-colonization. The ruling said that a ballot restricted to Chamorros violates the constitution’s ban on racial discrimination. More from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.

A retired bishop in the Northern Marianas has been accused of sex abuse against an altar boy. The charges date back to 1971, when Tomas Camacho served as a priest in Guam and, as we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, it’s just the latest in a long series of accusations.

It now looks like Guam will hold its decolonization plebiscite in 2018. The island's indigenous people will be asked whether they prefer independence, statehood, or Free Association with the U.S. More from Neal Conan in today's Pacific News Minute.

In his State of the Island address last week, Guam Governor Eddie Calvo announced plans to hold a plebiscite on the island's political future this November. The choices would be Statehood...Free association with the United States...or independence. We have more from Neal Conan in the Pacific News Minute.

The 2010 U.S. Census reported that Chamorro, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, are the third largest Pacific Islander group in the US. Chamorro arrived in Hawaii aboard whaling ships in the 1800’s, and a community of seven thousand lives here now. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on Craig Santos Perez, a Chamorro writer living in Hawai‘i who has just won an American Book Award.